Welcome to our class blog! This blog is designed to help link our study of sociology with everyday experiences. Thoughtful comments are always welcomed and appreciated.
When we hear the word poverty, we think of the countries
oversea where people have no food, living in tents, drinking from dirty water
and walking around without cloths. There are many people who think that there
is no poverty in there state or city they live in. poverty is not just about
the kids we see on TV, walking around without any shoes and are food deprived.
In Philadelphia,
there is more poverty around us than anyone could think. When we walk on the street
we see a lot of homeless people begging for money or food because people won’t
give them a chance at a job. According to the U.S census, 29 percent of
residents in Philadelphia 1st Congressional District live in
poverty. Out of the 10 largest cities in the country, Philadelphia is the
poorest. Philadelphia also contains the largest number of children who are
living in poverty. Parents have to go days without eating so their children
could eat. They also have to decide on whether they have to buy food or pay the
rent.
A mother should never have to let their
child go to school hungry. Hearing a child complaining that they are hungry is
a mother’s fear. I knew poverty was around me in my city, but I never knew it
was this bad. Even though it has gotten worst since the fall of the economy,
but it was basically passed down from one generation to the next.
I remember that when I was a kid I couldn’t wait to celebrate Christmas. I remember that my favorite part of Christmas was opening the presents that “Santa Clause” left the night before in my house. I also remember my mom’s smile looking at me while I was opening all the gifts. In a couple of months Christmas will come again, and for many kids in America the only gift that they are going to get is a big, bitter winter, far away from a home, and the smiles of their mothers will be erased by the cruel reality of being poor. In America the number of poor single mothers is growing and with them many kids have been added to this growing under-class group.
The media has created the myth that the reasons for this growth are that these mothers have been irresponsible, lazy, and promiscuous. The media has ignored many other reasons that have caused their misfortune like having low wage jobs, the death of their partner, domestic violence and the difficult economic situation that the country is experiencing. The media and politicians as agents of socialization have sold the concept that anybody in America can achieve the American dream, and if a person doesn’t reach the American dream it is because she or he hasn’t worked hard enough. Some people in the media have said that single mothers and the elderly don’t want to work hard because they want to live at the expense of the government.
According to the media and some politicians, the poor are deviants in America, because, the poor are breaking the values and norms of hard work. It is common to hear people from higher economic classes say that the poor want to be poor, that they don’t want to work hard and that they ought to have to live with the consequences of being poor. Also, lately some media has been saying that there is no such thing as poor or underclass in the United States because most of the poor families have refrigerators and microwaves, and some have a television or video game system. Even politicians that are running for the presidency are saying that if a person is poor, they should “blame themselves,” because they don’t want to work or they don’t’ work hard enough.
The reality is that many single women have jobs that pay less than the minimum wage and that make it difficult for them to afford a house, health care and a good education for their children. For some upper class Americans and some in the media, it is easy to judge the poor by saying that they are poor because of their lack of education and social morality. It is easy for some politicians to take benefits, security, and schools from the poor, because they think that being poor is a choice or a lifestyle.
The truth is that poor kids and single mothers have fewer opportunities than upper class American families. Poor families are less likely to move up the social hierarchy because they lack opportunities, education and support from the government and society. It is easy to punish the poor for being poor, instead of trying to make programs that could help single mothers to get better jobs with better wages, and programs that bring education and support to the children.
Christmas is coming soon and many poor mothers have to deal with the cruel reality that they are alone; that no matter how hard they work most of them will never be able to have a home or an opportunity to provide an education and a better future for their children. This Christmas many kids are going to learn that not only does Santa Claus not give presents to naughty children; he also doesn’t leave presents for the children of the poor.
Poverty is defined as being poor, lack of money and food. In the united state there are very few people or family that lives in extreme poverty, but live absolute poverty. The difference in absolute poverty are people that make a dollar a day, anything below that is consider extreme poverty. Here in the united stated families that have an income of $21,203 is consider in the line of poverty, but compared to other people in the world this is consider a family well off. In America, the poverty level is determined by the yearly income that a family of four haves to maintain a suitable standard of living.
I was born in a country that poverty is well common all around. Guatemala is a country that people struggle day by day to make ends meet. In other words people work their butts off to make enough to eat. Some off this people and family eat one meal a day or shared their meal with their young ones, which means that they starved. This people are knowed as extreme poverty; absolute poverty in my country is a little different, many people that fine them self in this situation move to a country that haves more opportunities or where they can earn more money to live a suitable life.
Poverty and starvation is all over the world and is becoming more common in places that does not have much support by the government. In Guatemala, education and employment is very poor and this is why children and adults are suffering from it. If Guatemala had the same laws that the United States have, half of the population in poverty can be reduced. Our current president Obama here in the USA has just open a law that all children should finished 12 grade or parents will get in trouble by the school district. I other country would have the laws this could help out poverty.
When we discussed in class about wealth and poverty I immediately thought about the end credits of this movie. "The Other Guys" is a buddy-cop-comedy, starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. They play two New York cops who stop a Ponzi scheme. The movie is hilarious and I encourage everyone to see it if you're looking for a good laugh, but it gets very serious at the end of the movie when the credits start to roll. The credits show how greedy people are that run corporations. Click play below to see what I'm talking about:
319:1 is the ratio of CEO salary to average employee salary. Just multiply your salary in 2010 by three hundred nineteen and that's how much more these greedy people are making than you. Can you believe these people make millions of dollars per year for dealing with the same work related stress levels as the rest of us. Our government bailed out these companies in 2008 even after they failed to keep their companies financially stable, and on top of that, the executives all gave themselves bonuses. Who gets a bonus for failing at their job?! I made a critical error last week at work and I was almost terminated. I wasn't given a beach house in Miami!
Just like the NFL, NHL, and MLB have salary caps for the players, corporations need to have salary caps as well. Even if you cap an executive's salary at $2,000,000 per year, that is still plenty of money for any American family of four to live, prosper, and have some money left over for retirement. It would help so many middle class and working class people have better lives if they invested the difference in salary to the people on the bottom of the ladder. Middle class and working class jobs are the back bone of these corporations anyway. We shouldn't have to work ten times as hard as the people on top only to receive low monetary recognition, and poor benefits. America can fix the poverty issue if just one corporation would cap the salaries, and invest more money into their line-level employees.
Poverty is the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money. Poverty is either measured as either absolute or relative poverty. Absolute poverty refers to being unable to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, helath care, education, clothing and shelter. According to the United Nations, 1 billion people, about one-fifth of the world's population live in absolute poverty. Relative poverty refers to lacking a usual or social acceptale level of resources or income as compared with others within a society or country. The World Bank's "Voices of the Poor", based on research with over 20,000 poor people in 23 countries, identifies a range of factors which poor people identify as part of poverty. These include: physical limitations, gender relationships, problems in social relationships, lack of security, abuse by those in power, etc. There are numerous characteristics related to poverty such as: hunger, education, housing etc. and differ around the world.
The people living in poverty suffer from hunger or even starvation. The rising in the cost of living make poor people less able to afford food. Poor people spend a greater proportion of their budgets on food than richer people. Malnutrition also is a growing problem because many of the people in poverty cannot find or afford food. The world health organization estimates that about eight hundred million people in the world are malnourished, which leads to disease. Hunger suppress the mental and physical development of children and leads to disease and death.
Research have found that there is a high risk of educational underachievement for children who are from low income housing circomtances. This often is a process that begins in primary schools. In the US educational system, these children are at a higher risk than other children for holding in their grade, special placements during the school's hours and even not completing their high school education. There are indeed many explanations for why students tend to drop out of school. For children with low resources, the risk factors are similar to excuses such as juvenule delinquincy rates, higher level of teenager pregnancy. Poverty often drastically affects children's success in school. Poverty is also the risk of homelessness. It is obvious that if you cannot afford food to eat, you cannot afford housing.
In sum, poverty has many causes. It is a major global problem that affects the billions who are living in poverty, but also affects all people in one way or another. In my point of view, poverty can be reduced by: providing basic needs, controlling overpopulation, increasing personal income(such as income grants, financial services)etc.
